Rob Portman: “my friend and colleague Senator Manchin from West Virginia and I are on the floor today to talk about this issue of…”

“my friend and colleague Senator Manchin from West Virginia and I are on the floor today to talk about this issue of fentanyl. This is a deadly synthetic opioid that is killing more people in our States than any other single drug. Unbelievably, Congress has only 15 days to act, and if we don't, some of these illegal fentanyl products are going to be legal again. This is exactly the wrong thing for us to do right now as, sadly, we are seeing a big increase in overdoses and overdose deaths because of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. We want to have bipartisan legislation that we have introduced, passed, that simply says: Let's not allow these illicitly manufactured and deadly synthetic opioids to suddenly become legal again. If we don't act within 15 days, that will happen. Our bill would ensure that these deadly drugs continued to be scheduled--that is the technical term--scheduled by the Drug Enforcement Agency, meaning they would continue to be illegal. Here is why we have to act. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is more than 15 times more powerful than heroin, and it is incredibly addictive. For years, this has been coming to our shores from China, almost all of it through the mail until recently because we, frankly, passed legislation to cut down on mail deliveries, and instead, now much is coming through Mexico, across our southwest border.…”